Florida Injury Attorney Blawg

For more than twenty years, the inclination of the Florida Legislature has been to create laws that tilt the playing field in favor of employers and their insurance carriers (E/C) in disputes involving injured workers. As a result, very few aspects of today's workers' compensation system stand behind injured workers.

One significant example of legislation designed to limit the ability of injured workers to obtain workers' compensation benefits is Section 440.09(1)(b) of the Florida Statutes. This section, commonly referred to as the Major Contributing Cause (MCC) requirement, places on injured workers the burden of proving that the industrial accident is more than 50% responsible for causing the injury. An injured worker who fails to meet this burden will be denied medical care and lost wage benefits from the employer.

The MCC is used as a defense in many cases. The E/C try to blame 50% or more of a claimant's injury on a pre-existing condition. For older workers and those with similar prior complaints, the defense can be difficult to overcome. Sadly, many an injured worker has been left without any workers' compensation benefits because of the MCC.

Fortunately, the First District Court of Appeal has carved out an important exception to the MCC doctrine. In Pearson v. Paradise Ford, 951 So.2d 12 (Fla. 1st DCA 2007), the court held that an employee need not meet the rigorous MCC requirements when her or his pre-existing condition is occupationally related.